The invention present invention relates to a device for purifying and decontaminating air.
In numerous industries, particularly including the electronics industry, coatings, foods, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, cell cultures, etc., control of the quality of the air in terms of particle content is an absolute necessity. Particulate and microbiological contamination are moreover linked, since it is now known that the micro-organisms present it the environment are almost always attached in the form of biofilms to the particles present in the air, which then serve as a support.
It should also be considered that one particle in 10,000 is associated with biocontaminant presence. It is therefore not surprising that systems for microbiological sanitation of the environment in industries in which the process demands it, are entirely bound to the control of the particulate content of the air.
The parameters which make it possible to monitor this bacteriological content of the air call upon either physics (filtration supplemented with bactericidal action, by UV, ionization, etc.) or chemistry for disinfection (aerosols, bactericides, fumigation, etc.) or usually a combination of the two (i.e.) filtration supplemented with backup from a bactericide).
In most of the solutions currently developed, filtration remains the basic method which makes it possible to limit the number of particles per unit volume and hence, by a proportionate effect, the associated microbiological contamination. These systems have the major drawback of rapidly becoming fouled, and hence of requiring substantial renewal costs if their efficiency is not to see a rapid and irreversible decline.